


blue, orange

by Avvu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, First War with Voldemort, M/M, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Post-Hogwarts, Postcards, i guess, minor panic attacks blink and you miss them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:35:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24773227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avvu/pseuds/Avvu
Summary: It's the first summer after Hogwarts, and they have nothing else to talk about than Peter's dead father. / There are blue and orange postcards on the fridge door, and behind them, there are words Sirius knows by heart.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	blue, orange

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: I don't speak Welsh so feel free to correct me if I'm way off.  
> I wrote this 2016 (in Finnish) and this is very me. summertime sadness and gossamer sex scenes and what I like to call "Sirius-angst". and _yes_ , I will shamelessly drop music and band references everywhere. enjoy <3

That summer smells of petrol and cigarette smoke in hair and mould under the kitchen sink.

Sirius has received five postcards from Llanelli in a month, they all have landscapes from Wales, and he has hung them all on the fridge door, and he stares them as the early morning light touches them. One of the cards has a picture of the sea in it, it’s too big and too shiny, the sky above is clear, and the unbelievable perfection makes Sirius feel ill. It’s the most recent one, it doesn’t have many words written on it.

_I don’t know when I’ll be back_

_(Dw i’n gweld dy eisiau di.)_

— _Remus_

Sirius hates that card especially much, and he’s not at all sorry when it falls off the door and slider under the fridge. It’s easier to forget it when it’s out of sight, and Sirius doesn’t even know any Welsh.

It’s the first summer after Hogwarts ended. James has fallen in love, again and hard, and they have nothing else to talk about than Peter’s dead father. Though, every time someone starts to talk about it, Sirius rolls himself a cigarette and turns his back against the wind. He prefers to listen to the humming in his ears.

“No one ever thinks before something happens,” James says, attempting to sound wise but he’s only repeating what his mother has said a week earlier.

“Mmh,” Sirius answers, turns his back and uses Muggle matches to light up the cigarette in Potters’ living room. Lily is sitting by the dining table, she has bright red lipstick on, and it clashes with the red of her hair, there are red stains on James’s chin. Euphemia has been making the whole morning, and although all the windows are open it’s boiling hot inside. James’s shirt is open, and he has scratches on his sides. Lily’s new haircut is the same as Debbie Harry’s, but Lily’s red makes it look funny and her fringe gets curly in the humid air. Nevertheless, Euphemia says it looks good on her, and Sirius hides his snort behind cough and when James knits his brows Sirius answers by raising his.

“We need to get Pete out,” James says after they’ve had two cups of tea, and Sirius has thought about cigarette butts and half-written letters to Wales for at least an hour. He has pretended to write those letters, but actually, he hasn’t written a word. He has thought about words, and he has listened to his heart crackle underneath his rib cage.

“He needs time,” Lily says and crosses her legs on James’s lap, and even if Sirius feels Lily is like a sister to him he can’t stand the skin contact.

“We don’t have time,” Sirius says, and the tea leaves on the bottom of his cup foretell storm and death; it’s hard not to smile at that.

On the table yesterday’s Daily Prophet screams of the murder of a whole family, a burning house in the picture has the Dark Mark floating above it. Sirius follows Lily’s eyes to the picture, then to James.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Sirius could write a book about those looks.

*

Sirius hates the sea and how the rays of sunshine touch the waves, the glint is blinding and makes his eyes water. He hates the sand. It goes into his shoes and scratches his heels raw and bloody. Lily has orange on her lips and her top is so short is shows her navel. It’s clearly very hard for James to keep his hands away from Lily. Sirius doesn’t know why they are there.

Peter has black and purple under his eyes, and his hands shake when Sirius offers him a freshly rolled cigarette.

“I didn’t want to come but Lily made me,” Peter says. Sirius says nothing. Lily’s laugh is the loudest, and no one else seems to notice Remus is missing and the full moon is in two night.

In Sirius’s dreams, the sea is red and it swallows the coastal towns of Wales.

“Have you heard anything about your brother?” Peter asks. Sirius turns to look at him and wonders how out of all the people it’s Peter, it’s always Peter who remembers to ask about Regulus.

“Not since the school ended,” Sirius says and rolls another. Peter shrugs. He wants to tell Peter he knows Regulus has already joined the Death Eaters, he joined the same day he turned seventeen two months ago. His stupid little Lion star.

After two hours, Lily has gone swimming twice, and Peter has gone home. James has orange on his upper lip, and Sirius wishes he would be drunker.

There’s no Remus, there’s no Regulus, there’re only James and Lily who have morphed into one, and there’s self-destructive and vindictive Peter, and it’s hard for Sirius to remember how to Apparate. James declines the motorcycle from him, James, who has become a shagging machine and who may become a former best friend. James Side-Along Apparates Sirius into Sirius’s mould stinking kitchen.

“These are pretty,” Lily says, and Sirius hasn’t even realised she has come too. Sirius laughs, landscapes from Wales, he could put up an exhibit.

“Are all of these from Remus?” she asks, takes off the cards one by one and reads the words written on them. Sirius knows them all by heart, he can easily imagine them having Remus’s voice.

_It’s raining here more than London_

_I think. Mum bought a new record_

_player. You’d like it._

_See you when I get back._

— _R_

_I’m not coming back yet. Dad_

_has purple roses in the garden._

_They look dead._

— _Remus_

_Hi,_

_see you soon!_

— _Remus_

_Maybe silence kills faster_

_than the war._

“Try to sleep a little,” James says but Sirius hears: _Try to get yourself back together._ He wants to kick James and remind him that no one ever thinks before something happens. But Lily smiles and there is orange lipstick all over her mouth, and Sirius smiles back.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” James says.

“Let’s go,” Lily says, and the way she takes James’s hand tells him that James won’t be keeping his shirt open tomorrow.

And Sirius doesn’t remember getting to bed but when he wakes up he’s covered in a cold sweat, and the sheets are stuck on his skin.

*

The Daily Prophet writes more about death than people getting missing nowadays but Sirius doesn’t notice that. He has burned holes into the newspaper page with his wand what is left are half words and meaningless sentences.

_32 EAD IN AN ATT K IN LONDON UNDERG D_

_32 people got ed atta on Monday evening in Lond 29 vict Muggles says madam A H om Departm cal Accide Catastrophes._

_Head Auror B MacK says and the real is not yet Auror MacKinnon says that and the c of Mu and their Minis Minis of Magic stay calm a rememeber that and no a._

_The attac similar than a month ago in which 19 wizar and 7 les._

_Offic dead on page 16._

On page sixteen there is one name Sirius has drawn a circle over, Harvey Whittemore. He has smoked three cigarettes in a row and drank wine naked in front of a window in his memory. They never really talked, but Harvey left bruises on Sirius’s shoulder, spoke in his sleep and looked good without any clothes.

It’s almost a relief to see names he knows, names that have faces, names that have hands and touch and mouths and bodies. It feels like reality, and that’s what Sirius needs—reality.

Because: dream have made real like seem unreliable and the newspapers are unreadable.

*

The sixth postcard comes on a rainy morning when Sirius already feels queasy. The card has a sky and a sea on it, everything Sirius believed Wales doesn’t actually have.

_Dad’s roses have died, finally._

_These vowels give me a_

_headache. I hope you got_

_rid of the bloody motorcycle._

— _Remus_

Sirius puts the too blue and too orange postcard in the inside pocket of his jacket. It gets wrinkly in a day but it’s better that way. And when James asks why Sirius is smiling in a graveyard (it used to be a street but nineteen and seven have made it a memorial) Sirius doesn’t bother answering, and he doesn’t know how to anyway.

(Those days when Sirius doesn’t remember Regulus or death or Peter’s shaking hands or Lily’s tiny tops, he remembers what Remus’s skin tastes like and what he has said and what the spring smells like and who it feels to laugh so hard it starts to hurt.)

That day Sirius has thought about the red sea from his dreams and wondered what it feels like to lose someone, when suddenly Remus stands there in his entry hall wearing a tad too big cotton shirt, his hair is shorter than five weeks and three days ago. Sirius looks at him, and Remus stands there.

It’s hard to breathe, and neither of them speaks. It’s ridiculous. _Ridiculous_ how Sirius’s fingertips tingle and the air in his flat feels lighter.

“Peter’s dad died,” is all Sirius says, although he should say _Hi, long time no see, what was it like in Wales_ and _Did you bring any souvenirs._

“I know,” answers Remus, although he should day _Hi, I came back, it was awful in Wales_ and _No, but I brought myself_.

Sirius’s eyes hurt when he looks at Remus; it’s easier to turn his back against the wind and light up a cigarette before he says anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Remus says to Sirius’s back, and Sirius doesn’t remember to breathe, and the cigarette doesn’t catch fire.

“Mmh,” Sirius says, and it feels harder than it should. So he takes a deep breath, it crackles in him, turns around to look at Remus. Remus hasn’t moved.

A thousand-pound question: “What are you doing here?”

And the wrong answer: “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Sirius turns to look at the ceiling, it has cracks. “There is mould under the kitchen sink,” he says because it feels important.

“Is that so?” Remus says and laughs a little.

It’s easier after that.

*

Lily has an orange raincoat, Peter’s hands haven’t stopped shaking. James has let his hair grow, it has started to look ridiculous, Remus has been sleeping in the couch and that _is_ ridiculous. Sirius feels like Remus’s father’s dead roses have begun to live in his lungs (or maybe it’s the mould).

“Everyone’s here,” James says, even though Peter is only physically present, and even though Lily isn’t supposed to be part of them, and everyone pretends not to notice that no one smiles.

They have known about the Order for months, but it’s the first time they see what it really means. They have been told about silent murders, and there is a new picture of the end of the world in their minds. And the end of the world is burned flesh and dead children, and the end of the world simmers above them as a snake and a skull.

Sirius thinks he’s going to be sick but:

“We should make a bet of who dies first,” he says. Lily laughs, it sounds like a sob and James hugs her quickly.

“I think it’s gonna be me,” Remus says, and then Sirius has to turn his back at him, close his eyes and _breath_ , fill his lungs with something else than dead flowers.

“We should get plastered,” Peter suggests. (Because they are eighteen and because they have been given two years to live and because hiding newspapers is not enough any more and because Sirius can’t look at Remus and because.)

Alcohol fills Peter with fear of death and panic, and it makes him hyperventilate, and the shaking of his hands spreads to his entire body.

“Pete, Pete, Petey!” James’s grip on Peter’s shoulders is firm, Peter whines and James’s knuckles are white.

“Calm down,” James says, his voice is strong, and Peter looks up. “We’re gonna make it, right. We’ll be alright.”

Sirius wants to say _No we don’t_ , someone is going to die and something will happen. But instead, he places the firewhisky bottle on the table. It makes a sound against the wood and the sound echoes in Sirius’s head. Too much has happened that summer, and when he watches hysteric Peter and when he sees himself and all of them with someone else’s eyes he realises they are not going to make it and they will not be alright.

Because they are eighteen and they have been given two years to live.

“Come home with me,” Sirius mutters onto Remus’s shoulder, he has Remus’s shirt hem inside his fist and even if Remus’s home is in Llanelli, Remus nods.

Sirius _can’t_ Apparate drunk, but Remus is not that drunk. The kitchen smells of dirty dishes and mould, and a lot of things happen at the same time.

Remus’s shirt gets wrinkly in Sirius’s fist, Remus’s fingers are around Sirius’s wrist. Sirius feels hot, and he can still hear the sound the bottle makes as is touches the table.

There are blue and orange postcards on the fridge door, and behind them, there are words Sirius knows by heart.

Remus is tall, so fucking tall, but thin so he could still go through the ventilation window if he wanted to. And when Remus presses his face on Sirius’s hair, on his temple, so that Sirius can feel his breathing against his skin, he trembles.

“Fucking war,” Sirius sighs, and maybe it’s the whisky talking, but he needs to get it out.

“Fuck, _Sirius_ ,” Remus mumbles, Sirius can _feel_ his voice as it vibrates through him. Sirius squeezes harder, and he can feel his own nails against his palm through the fabric.

Some other time Sirius wouldn’t have done it, but now he turns his head so that he faces Remus and lets out a sound, almost a laugh. Remus’s mouth tastes like whisky and Remus and something sweet. And though the skin contact feels wrong and Remus’s skin feels hot under Sirius’s hands, he presses skin on skin.

And though that is, this is the reason why Remus went to Wales for thirty-eight days and sent him six postcards and talked only about flowers.

“You should learn to clean after yourself,” Remus whispers and Sirius doesn’t know if he means the mould or _them_. And he doesn’t ask, he lets go of Remus’s shirt, opens up the buttons on Remus’s jeans and shoves his hand inside Remus’s pants.

(Sirius leaves bruises on Remus’s shoulder and remembers to drink a bit more in the memory of Harvey Whittemore. Then he smokes in bed and draws lines on Remus’s skin with his fingers. He finds Remus’s heartbeat and draws a cross over it and smokes in memory for upcoming loses. He bets that out of the four of them, Sirius James Remus Peter, first one to die would be Remus since fate has a weird taste of humour.

In his dreams the sea storms like blood in Peter’s veins as he fears for death, and Sirius has never before feared to drown.)

*

In a week Order becomes somewhat an obsession for Sirius. When he gets his wand in his hand, when he gets drunk with adrenalin, when he gets that so many of his crappy family is on the other side, he can’t turn around. It’s fairly easy, and Sirius doesn’t realise it until he Apparates home after six days and the kitchen doesn’t smell like mould.

Sirius knows Remus sleeps in his bed when he’d not there. The couch leaves bruises on his spine. And Remus sleeps there now. The early morning sun shines on the fridge, and Sirius turns to look, he counts five cards. The fifth is the one that went missing. _I don’t know when I’ll be back. (Dw i’n gweld dy eisiau di.)_ It makes him laugh, and it pisses him off, he sits on the edge of the bed and the bed jerks.

“What are you doing here?” Sirius asks. Remus sneers, and for a moment Sirius thinks he’s sleeping, but when he turns his head Remus has his eyes open, and he’s smiling a little.

“You didn’t get it then?” Remus says.

“Get what?”

Remus doesn’t answer, and Sirius scoffs. Sirius tries to remember if all the summers before have been like this, but of course, they haven’t. This summer is six weeks old, and it feels never-ending. The summers before have been over too quickly, too drunk, too careless. And now Sirius cares too much about everything (not everyone, that would hurt too much).

“Are you gonna sleep at all?” Remus asks onto the sheets and sighs and moves closer to the wall, and even though that shouldn’t happen, Sirius takes off his shirt. His pillow feels bad on his neck, and the sheets are wrinkly.

Sirius’s bed is too small.

“Don’t kick me,” Remus warns him and it sounds like he’s already sleeping. Sirius’s chest is full of emptiness when Remus turns to face the wall, and Sirius has nothing else to see than the bruises on his spine.

*

Rain looks almost bearable against the Potters’ kitchen window if it didn’t mean Sirius has to wait until it ends. Euphemia has forbid using the motorcycle in the rain. That’s ridiculous, but Sirius can’t say no to her, his _but_ stays silent.

James without Lily looks weird now, like a dream where everything is still fine. James without Lily rolls a cigarette and uses a coffee cup as an ashtray even though Euphemia has forbidden it and even though Fleamont has an ashtray in the living room.

“Wormy said he’d come, but he didn’t,” says James without Lily.

“Who?” Sirius asks accidentally.

“Wormy. Wormtail. Peter. What the fuck, Sirius?” James without Lily _curses_ and sheds ash on the table next to Sirius’s thigh.

Sirius likes that James especially much. That James who feels like sitting on the kitchen table is necessary when it rains and that James who buttons up his shirts and that James who is Sirius’s.

“Why are you so fucking angry all the time?” Sirius asks, accidentally, again.

“Why are _you_?” James laughs, and Sirius would love to answer with a grin, but it’s easier to steal James’s cigarette and kick him accidentally on the shin.

“Lily, oh, Lily,” Sirius sings like Roger Daltrey, he’s not sure if it is an answer or a follow-up question.

The rain ends, but the grass is still wet. James doesn’t have any shoes on, and his ripped jeans get wet up to his ankles. They don’t talk about Peter’s lies or Lily’s tops, and that is good because they don’t have to always talk, not even with James.

And James doesn’t talk until Sirius is almost left.

“So, Moony?” James asks and sounds the opposite of careless and negligent. 

“What about him?” Sirius asks back, it’s easier that way. But nothing’s actually easy when he talks about Remus, so he doesn’t talk about Remus. Not to Remus, not to Peter, absolutely not to James whose eyes are warm brown in the wet sunshine.

“Does he still live with you?”

“He does.”

James hums and smiles and Sirius knows why. 

Because Remus deliberately doesn’t whine about Sirius’s bruising couch and because Sirius doesn’t want to tell he deliberately doesn’t sleep at nights.

James, oh, James, who’s in love and thinks others are too.

*

In the Order meetings, they talk about Voldemort, death, technicalities, mathematics (how nineteen is less than two hundred and sixty-three and the aftermath will be zero and two hundred and forty-four), about things that make Peter hyperventilate. Then Lily takes Peter’s hand in hers and squeezes, and James puts his hands on Peter’s shoulders, and they whisper to him, _hey hey it’s alright, you’re alright,_ and even though Sirius knows what love is, only then he understands it.

Sirius is supposed to be focusing on death and mathematics of death but he wonders how many houses in Britain has mould in them or is there something wrong with his sense of smell. Remus sits so close to him that he needs to press his nails onto his own thighs but not so far away that Fabian Prewett _looks_ at Sirius. Sirius knows that look, he has looked other men like that (Remus, James, Harvey Whittemore, that year older Hufflepuff who had a triangle birthmark and who is, also, already dead), and when Fabian looks at him, Sirius wonders how much does it hurt if he got really battered.

Someone calls Voldermort the Dark Side, and Sirius laughs out loud because Lily has taken them to see Muggle pictures, but when they talk about Sirius’s family, he doesn’t laugh any more. He thinks about Regulus, again, he’s supposed to go back to Hogwarts in the autumn, and maybe Sirius should have talked to him more and maybe he should have told him that beheading the house elves is not actually _right_. 

But then again, maybe nothing is right if there is a chance he could get killed by his little brother.

Maybe nothing is right if there is a bigger chance at dying at nineteen than at ninety. 

The Order is good and bad, Sirius doesn’t know which one is it more. Some days Sirius feels like they’ve got it, that they have a chance. They have Dumbledore, they have most of the Ministry of Magic on their side, they have Marlene MacKinnon, and her brother is the Head Auror. They have something more. And other days Sirius feels like he should have taken his mother’s orders, that he should’ve told the Sorting Hat he doesn’t belong in Gryffindor. Maybe it would have been easier that way. Maybe it would have been easier to be only Black but not the black (Black) sheep. 

It’s also good and bad that Lily has started to come around when James has Order business without her. First Sirius doesn’t know why she does it, but when he _does_ , he lets Lily paint his nails dark red and then he pets her too-short hair. 

“It doesn’t smell bad in here any more,” Lily says. Lily stands in Sirius’s kitchen and makes tea the Muggle way since it takes more time. First Sirius says nothing but then he has to.

“Remus.”

It’s enough for Lily, she smiles, and eventually, the morning comes alongside with James.

*

Wales is, after all, sunny and fucking orange and blue. He has driven there (by roads, not by clouds), and now the motorcycle is parked next to Lyall’s car. There are old, dead roses in the garden and Sirius greets them in sense of duty.

Hope opens the door and smiles, she has freckles and laugh lines.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Hope says and lets Sirius in.

 _I didn’t know I was coming_. “Yeah,” Sirius says.

“Remus is in his room.”

Sirius doesn’t want to make conversation, he tries to smile and Hope smiles back, he goes past the living room and Lyall. The door to Remus’s room is open, and yet Sirius knocks on it. Lyall is listening to radio and Hope makes tea, and Sirius is sure he is the only one who really thinks about anything. 

Sirius has been there once before, but it was two summers ago. The last time there was space in the walls, only a mirror and a picture of a forest there. Now there are newspaper cutting, photographs, postcards, so much stuff the wallpaper is hidden. 

Remus sits legs crossed on his bed, it’s even smaller than Sirius’s. He has his fists on his lap, and he’s wearing nothing else than his pants. 

“Hi,” Sirius says and sits opposite of Remus. The leather jacket makes his wrists sweaty. 

“What are you doing here?” Remus asks quietly. The sunset is in a few hours. 

“I came to see you,” Sirius says and looks at the cutting behind Remus. It’s the same one Sirius has on his kitchen table, the one that has holes in it. 

“Right,” Remus says and closes his eyes, and Sirius fears Remus might hear his irregular heart beating hard against his rib cage.

“Mum and Dad won’t let you in there,” Remus says after Sirius has taken off his jacket. _There_ is a cellar. Sirius smiles.

“I’ll come anyway.”

“Please, don’t.”

Sometimes Sirius wishes he could speak France or German or some other language Remus doesn’t understand. Then he could say things out loud, he could fight without a fight, and he could write him letters. It would be easier to write him letters. It would be easier to say things. 

And at that moment Sirius remembers Remus’s words from a few weeks ago, in Sirius’s bed, _You didn’t get it then_ and Sirius knows exactly what he didn’t get, but he gets it now. He looks Remus instead of the papers on the wall.

“I _got it_ ,” he says, and it’s hard to keep his voice steady. Remus smiles slightly, only with the left side of his mouth, the side that is closer to the sun.

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

Remus has his eyes still closed, and his eyelids are purple from the blood rushing underneath light skin, and his eyelashes are so long, so fucking long. 

“Kiss me then,” Remus says, only that Sirius is not sure if he really does, he’s looking at Remus’s closed eyelids, not his mouth, until now. He leans closer, touches Remus’s face with his fingertips and when he kisses Remus, Remus doesn’t pull away, nor does he unclench his hands. Sirius’s thumbs rest on Remus’s cheekbones, and the rest of his fingers gets tangled in Remus’s hair behind the ears. 

Eyes closed Sirius still sees orange. Remus’s skin feels cold and clammy. 

After sunset minutes are hours and Sirius lays naked in Remus’s bed. It’s hot in the room, and he can almost hear how the moon takes away Remus’s humanity.

(In his dreams the sea is boiling black and red, and it’s surface flickers in the moonlight, and it swallows him.)

*

Morning is wet grass, and the sky is almost white just before the sunrise. Sirius uses Alohomora on the cellar door, the lock clicks open, and there is a blanket and folded clothes on the second stair. Sirius takes them with him even if he knows it will reveal him. Stairs whine under his steps, and halfway down, he almost turns around and goes back, he almost forgets why he’s there at all.

The stone wall is full of shining white claw marks and on the stone floor sleep shining white Remus. Sirius covers him, grits his teeth and sits next to the wall. The stone is cold through his shirt. It’s almost dark in there, the light comes from a tiny window. 

Remus’s dreams make his limbs jerk, Sirius watches him for a moment until he can recognise a nightmare from a good dream. He stands up, kneels beside Remus and hugs him close, puts his hair in Remus’s sweaty damp hair. He doesn’t have time to stop himself before his mouth whisper _hey hey it’s alright, you’re alright._

The panic comes a little later.

*

It’s sunny in the port. Sirius is tad disappointed; no one even talks Welsh there, only the street names are messy letters he can’t read. He tries to say them out loud. He listens for a while how a little boy screaming and pointing at the ice cream stall on the street corner until he has to turn his back to them and roll a cigarette. 

His hands are still shaking, and he didn’t even thank the Lupins when he left. He just drove away, but he’s still in Llanelli. It’s sunny, and the sea is blue blue blue. Sirius smokes and goes as close to the sea as he dares, he crouches on the dock and stares at the water. He stares and wonders if his dear is irrational or if the sea has the power to crush him. The sun makes the water surface glimmer, and it doesn’t look frightening, not really, not now.

Sirius looks at the sea, and it almost feels like peace. 

He stands up, turns his back against the wind and lights up another cigarette. He buys himself an ice cream, and he buys a postcard from a man with a moustache, and it seems like the war doesn’t reach that far. 

Sirius drives back home (by clouds, not by roads) and his hands are still shaking. 

*

The rest of the summer smells like petrol and cigarette smoke in hair, burning flesh in the undergrounds. 

Sirius has written a few words behind the postcard he had bought, but he hasn’t sent it. He would have like to mail it the Muggle way with a stamp and an address, but he never remembers to buy stamps and he doesn’t know the address. He puts the card on the fridge door, it fits there with the others, and it doesn’t look lonely.

(The sea doesn’t look scary or red or stormy. It’s silent even in the nights when he’s afraid of it.)

Remus’s skin smells like dust and ice cream and Remus. He’s sleeping at Sirius’s place in Sirius’s bed, and sometimes Sirius forgets that they are not in love, not really. But some nights Remus sleeps facing Sirius with his back against the wall, and Sirius is sure his heart is breaking.

Sometimes Sirius fears the war even more than Peter, sometimes defencelessness is more drowning than the sea.

Sometimes Remus puts his fingers in Sirius’s hair and kisses his eyelids. Sometimes Sirius’s hands shake so hard he can’t hold onto the bed frames. 

The rest of the summer smells like petrol and cigarette smoke in hair and old coffee. When the autumn comes, Sirius drives his motorcycle only in the rain. 


End file.
